V.

The Committee, in obedience to the amendment to the constitution of the Association which was adopted at the last Annual Meeting, caused to be prepared and distributed among the members of the Association a pamphlet stating the title of all public General Laws passed at the last session of the General Assembly, and giving in some cases a brief abstract or memorandum of the subject-matter. The publication of this pamphlet was unfortunately delayed longer than the thirty days allowed by our constitutional provision. This delay was caused by the fact that the Governor thought it well to retain the engrossed bills in his own custody for some time after signing them, for the purpose of having copies made before transmitting the laws to the Clerk of the Court of Appeals.

We did not become aware of this practice until shortly before the expiration of the thirty days allowed by the constitution of the Association; and, immediately upon learning thereof, we, with the Governor's permission, caused an examination of the bills to be made in his office, instead of in the office of the Clerk of the Court of Appeals.

If the Constitutional Amendment which is to be submitted to the voters of the State at the next General Election, providing for the printing instead of the engrossing of the bills, shall be passed, the necessity for such a memorandum as we endeavored to prepare will be to a large extent obviated, as printed copies of all signed bills will probably be immediately procurable upon their passage. ARTHUR W. MACHEN, JR., Chairman.

June 29, 1912.

Arthur W. Machen, Jr.: There are one or two remarks I would like to make in connection with this report. In the first place I desire to speak in regard to Section 1 as to the constitutional provision making the jury judges

of the law as well of the facts. Probably the members of the Association will remember this bill as having been debated at some length during the last session of our body. It simply repeals the constitutional provision providing that in criminal cases the Jury shall be judges of the law as well of the fact and leaves the common law in force, whatever the Court of Appeals may construe the common law to be on that subject. We shall probably be in doubt for a little while as to what the common law is on this matter, but it leaves the Legislature free to prescribe that the Jury shall be judges only of the fact in criminal cases leaving the law to be decided by the Court as in civil cases.

Several members of the Committee, one at least who is not present here today, thought this bill should be reported with favorable recommendation from the Committee, and I certainly am prepared to say that perhaps a majority of the Committee aproved the bill, but it did not seem possible to consult all the members of the Committee, and therefore it was thought best to leave the report in the non-committal form in which it was submitted to the various members of the Committee.

As to the second division of the report I would say that the Committee desired, if possible, to present something to the Association which would give us some live matter to discuss. I am aware. from experience that in these off years when there is to be no session of the General Assembly the following winter, the Association has been very apt simply to put everything off, even though it may be discussed, because the Legislature does not meet for over a year. The Committee, therefore. thought we might perhaps get something which could be acted on immediately by discussing some of the rules of proceedure prescribed by the Court of Appeals under consti

tutional provision regulating appeals, or regulating the practice in Chancery. The object I think is sufficiently. stated in the report itself, and it is to diminish the unnecessary cost of appeals.

I have in mind a case in which, some six or eight years ago, a very voluminous record was taken to the Court of Appeals where the complete copy of the record, or nearly complete, was furnished by counsel in the case. Both sides had a copy of the testimony and all the pleadings and all of the papers filed, in their possession. A complete copy was furnished the clerk, yet the parties to that appeal were compelled to pay the clerk not merely the legal fees that he would have had a right to demand if he had copied the record, but also some illegal fees which are exacted, at least in Baltimore City; I do not know what the practice is in the counties by the clerks of the local courts. The statutory provision is one cent for every ten words, but in Baltimore City we have been charged three cents for ten words. I have also known of bills to be presented for at least five times the legal rates It is pretty hard to pay that sum when the clerk does the work but, when you present him with a copy of the record agreed on by the counsel on both sides, it is surely asking a little too much that the litigants should be compelled to pay several hundred dollars simply as a tax. Therefore your Committee thought that this suggested change might meet with the approval of the Association and the Court of Appeals. Indeed we were not uninfluenced by the fact that our recommendations to the General Assembly have not met with such degree of consideration as the dignity of this Association would lead us, a priori, to have expected. We thought possibly a recommendation addressed to the Court of Appeals

might receive more consideration than if addressed to the General Assembly.

As to the third section, the bill providing for an additional Judge for the Court of Appeals, I may say, speaking for myself alone, I have never been and am not now an advocate of the principle that Baltimore City, because it contains a very large part of the population of the State, should therefore be entitled to a proportionate voice in the government of the State. It seems in each case to be a question of expediency. The right of suffrage is not a natural right, nor is it a natural right to have a vote of the same value throughout the State. If it is good policy for the State to have a vote in Calvert County of five, ten or one hundred times as much value in the election of the Legislature which passes our laws as a vote in Baltimore City, I say by all means have it so.

Therefore, speaking for myself and not for the other members of the Committee, I may say that I have never been in favor of constitutional amendments that have been submitted in past years for increasing the representation of Baltimore City in the General Assembly.

I, myself, have always voted against those amendments because while we have always had from Baltimore City a few members of the Legislature who were of a very high type of man, yet upon the whole it has always seemed to me that it would be a good thing for the State of Maryland and the City of Baltimore to have just as few as possible of the kind of representatives we have been in the habit of sending to the Legislature. Therefore I have never been in favor of those bills. But when we come to the question which is here under consideration it is a little different. It has always seemed to several of us, I say several of us, it has seemed to a great many of the lawyers of Baltimore City, that an

additional Judge of the Court of Appeals from Baltimore City would be desirable.

You doubtless remember the story told by Judge Harmon at a political meeting in Baltimore City a few weeks ago during the primary campaign, of the school teacher who had been inculcating among her class of boys the duty of patriotism and the equal opportunities offered by our country for advancement. She had pointed out that each boy in this county might expect to grow up and become president. After she had instilled that principle into the minds of the boys for some time, she thought that she would see whether or not it had taken root. One day she asked every boy who hoped to be president to hold up his hand. All the boys held up their hands but one and she said, "Why, Johnnie, have you no ambition; do you not hope to be president?" The boy replied, "Please ma'am, I am a Democrat".

It seemed to some of us that the scope for ambition, in the case of a lawyer from Baltimore City who is debarred by his politics from becoming president and debarred by residence of any considerable hope of becoming a member of the Court of Appeals, was somewhat limited. There has been some talk of removing the disqualification with regard to the presidency, and we thought perhaps it might be desirable to consider the question of at least diminishing the severity of the restriction with regard to the Court of Appeals. Of course it is in each case a question simply whether it is expedient to do so; whether the Judges of the Court of Appeals with the increasing work which is put upon them by the increased business would be assisted by an additional Judge form Baltimore City; whether the State would be likely in that way to gain or lose. It is not a question to be answered, in my own judgment speaking for myself and